On the inside
by Carmabaeji - Lively Aria
Summary: Waiting for her to wake up, and remembering the last time they did this. Post-Entity, and Spoilers for In the line....


On the inside  
  
by Aria  
  
Rating: Same as the show.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own them, if I did then I would be a hell of a lot richer. No one's paying me to write this, so I'm not making any profit from writing it...why am I doing this then?  
  
Spoilers: In the line of duty, and Entity.  
  
Synopsis: Just a short add-on for the episode Entity.  
  
  
  
-*-*-  
  
She doesn't want anyone to know she's crying, her back is to the door, but that doesn't mean she can't hear everything. As soon as I walk in she mops a hand across her face, she doesn't turn, and she doesn't greet me. But my immediate concern isn't for the doctor, it's the patient. "How is she, doc?" I ask her, watching as she retreats across the room.  
  
"She's...uh...unconscious, she hasn't woken up yet." I allow Janet a bit longer to compose herself, before she turns around again, focussing her red eyes solely on her friend, "She doesn't want to."  
  
I nod, we have nothing to say. Major Carter lies on the bed between us, she looks dead. Moments like this remind me how much smaller than me she is...she's tall and thin, the hospital gown does nothing for her, the pale green material reflects off her eerily white skin and makes her look even sicker. If that's at all possible.  
  
Janet's eyes are beginning to well up, "She looks so pale." she whispers.  
  
It's my fault, "Well that happens when you die." I growled, angry at myself.  
  
"God! Will you stop it!" she exclaims, the tears finally breaking free. Her voice goes up a tone as she vents at me, "This doesn't help Sam!" she exclaims. She's crying now, openly sobbing, and she feels stupid for it.  
  
I walk over to her, and wrap my arms around her. She sobs, her little head squarely in the centre of my chest, muttering to herself. I'm not sure exactly what, but she seems to be trying to console herself. I'm struck by how short she is, and run my hands across he tiny head, but more of my attention is focussed on her patient, watching the tiny crinkle in her covers that creases and uncreases, periodically, the only indication that she is still breathing.  
  
I can make out what she's saying now. I don't know how long it took me, but I can hear her "It's not your fault."  
  
I look down at the doc, she's looking back up at me, her eyes, although swollen and red, are no longer wet, the last of her tears are evaporating off her cheeks, and my hand is on her hair, halfway through a soothing rub.  
  
"What?"  
  
"You didn't know what the entity was doing, you still don't, it was the right choice." Janet looks earnestly at me, she makes no effort to move from our embrace, both of us still require the comfort, the human contact, and Sam feels cold, I can tell just by looking, and even if she didn't I couldn't hold those pale fingers, they don't look like hers.  
  
"To shoot her, that was the right choice?" I'm still angry at myself.  
  
But Janet seems to think she can change that, "Sam agrees with me, you know she does. Sam only puts herself on the line for one reason, to protect those she loves; you, me, Daniel, Teal'C, Cassie, General Hammond...the list lasts forever, and eventually every living thing on the planet is included...right down to that cat, Planck. That's why she does this, and that's why she'd agree with me. You both make the right choices. Don't be angry..."  
  
I back away from her, and walk further up Sam's bedside. "For godsake doc, don't be angry for killing..."  
  
"For killing a woman who is lying two foot away from you, alive. Look at the monitors, Colonel, hear those beeps! They may be annoying sounds, but they're telling you she's alive!" Janet folds her arms and yells, for a minute I'm afraid she'll get out a big needle.  
  
I look over at Carter, lying on the bed, the sheets crease, and I wait, for what seems like an eternity before they uncrease, her chest rises a few millimeters, and she exhales again. "Thanks, doc." I almost whisper, a smile forming on my lips.  
  
"For what?" she asks, "Making you stop acting like a jackass." she jokes. "Colonel." she adds as an afterthought.  
  
"That too." I mutter.  
  
We stand in silence for a moment before I turn to look at her, she's exhausted, and is scratching at her face when I speak, "Go home, doc, get some rest - you look like hell, and I'm being nice there."  
  
"I've got to stay here, when she wakes up she'll..."  
  
"Someone's gotta stay here..." I interject, "I will, get some sleep, go see Cassie. I'll stay here. I'll call you as soon as she wakes up."  
  
She exhales, and eventually nods, "okay, my home phone number is..."  
  
"I know your number doc," Janet raised her eyebrows, she was going to ask, "Ah...678-0134. GO!"  
  
She smiled at that, "Thankyou Colonel." she said, and headed back towards her office, before she bolted past with her handbag and coat.  
  
-*-*-  
  
Hours later, I am still here. My initial abhorrence to touch my second in command is gone, it left when I first noticed the colour returning to her face, it may only be a pale yellow, and a bit of brown under her eyes, but it's a colour, a human one. I'm still watching the creases in the sheets, I keep thinking I should smooth them out, but even though, if I looked I could see the chest rise and fall, I'm still watching the crease, it's the only thing that tells me she's alive, that my Major, my second in command, probably the only woman I've ever trusted with my life, is still alive.  
  
-*-*-  
  
She walked into my office and sat down on the chair. Her entire posture was wrong, she'd shrunken in on herself, she was cradling her hands in her lap and looking down at her fingers. She'd left the door open. She wanted to be able to escape, but I wasn't sure from what.  
  
I cleared my throat, "Captain?" I asked. "Is something wrong?"  
  
"If it ever happens again, if a Goa'uld ever takes me - I want you to kill me, there and then. Don't chase me across the stars, like Daniel's doing for Shau'ri...just kill me." She started speaking quickly and stopped just as Ã³uddenly. Not once did she look up from her fingers, not to look at me, my desk, the carpet.  
  
I nodded, licking the remnants of my sandwich off of my lips. "Alright..."  
  
She started speaking again, suddenly, and I shut up and listened. "I know Jolinar, I know he...wasn't a Goa'uld - I know that it was...but being trapped, inside myself I..." She stopped again.  
  
I didn't want to say anything - she was like a tap being turned on and off, and flowing powerfully when on. I wanted her to talk, and I wanted her to feel like she could.  
  
She blinked, and pulled a hand up to wipe an eye. And then looked up at me, I could see she wanted to cry. "Promise me, if I..."  
  
"I'll do it." I answered quickly, I didn't want to hear her ask me to kill her again. I couldn't hear it. Not when there was so much hope for her, so many unique talents she had.  
  
She chewed her lip, looking away, biting back tears, before she turned to me again, "Without hesitating."  
  
I couldn't answer her, not immediately. I could honestly say that I would shoot her, but I knew I'd hesitate, I knew I'd find it hard.  
  
-*-*-  
  
Even then I knew that I couldn't shoot her, on a seconds notice. That even if she was suffering, in pain, that I would be so selfish as to plead with God, just for a second, to make it all right. My hesitation proved too much for her then. When I couldn't answer it was my turn to look down at my hands, and she nodded, stood up, and walked out. I let her go. That was why she'd left the door open.  
  
The rhythm of the creases, changed, it sped up, her eye lids started to move rapidly, and she moaned slightly in her sleep. For a moment I was worried, I even stood up from my chair, and looked around the infirmary, after my initial panic I realised, she was dreaming, and sat back down. They had a special name for the type of sleep where you dreamt, and acronym. I played with words in my mind for a moment, before I settled on REM, like the band. Rapid eye movement. She was dreaming. I ran my hand across her forehead, and settled back into my chair, taking her hand in mine.  
  
-*-*-  
  
It was one of those universal constants. Gravity sucked things together. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Captain Carter would be in her lab, especially if she had been ordered to go home.  
  
"You know, I'm thinking of making this into a cliche." I said, smiling. Shoving my hands into my pockets, I walked in.  
  
She was poised over a magnifying glass, and tinkering with something. Right now I didn't care what or why, I only had two concerns, my chosen topic of discussion, and why my 2IC was on base when she was supposed to be on medical leave, and psychological counseling.  
  
"Sir?" she asked. She wasn't smiling. Whenever I confuse her, she always smiles, even if it's a tricky situation, there's always a little smile.  
  
"If you want to find Carter, she's in her lab." I smile at her, she looks back at me, it's not a smile, but she's not cold either. "It's a constant, one of the rules of the universe."  
  
She continued her work, ignoring me. If it were any other officer, who'd been through anything less, he'd have had a go. "Why aren't you at home?" I asked her.  
  
"I have to finish these mineral tests, I have a report due on them." she replied, changing implements.  
  
"Put it down, Carter, that's an order."  
  
She complied, but didn't look at me.  
  
"All your reports are now due one week after you get back from your med leave. If I see you on base for any reason other than an appointment with Doc Mackenzie, I will have old doc frasier add another two days to your leave, is that clear." My tone wasn't harsh, but it got my point across.  
  
She nodded meekly, and pushed the magnifier away. After a moment of silence she began to pack up the mineral samples. I watched as she organised instruments, placing them in neat rows in her cupboards. The minerals she placed in glass vacuum sealed containers and stored them in a metal oven. After shutting the door, she wiped her hands on her fatigues, and looked around the room. Eventually she settled on her car keys, palming them before she walked past me out the door.  
  
"Carter..." I began, prompting her to turn and look at me. The first time in five minutes. "If you feel like talking about this whole thing, the last two weeks, at all..."  
  
She nodded, "I'm fine, sir." She turned to leave again.  
  
"Don't lie to me, Carter." I said, I know she heard me, but a few seconds later I heard foot falls on the corridor.  
  
-*-*-  
  
The early morning shift came in at five o'clock, and I was lying there face down in a small puddle of my own drool on Carter's bed. Sandra, one of the nurses that worked the morning shift tapped my shoulder to wake me up. She was a pleasant woman, one of the few nurses that hadn't jammed a needle into my posterior. After a few taps, and several quiet mutterings of my name, I woke up and slowly pulled my head up. She was beaming down at me, looking like an angel in the overhead light, holding a tissue and a styrofoam cup of coffee.  
  
"You must be exhausted." she said softly, kneeling down beside me.  
  
"I've gotten my few minutes of kip." I said, smudging my drool into the bed spread. She held out the tissue, and I moped my mouth with it, before placing it on the bed.  
  
"She's going to be okay, you know." she said kindly.  
  
I took the coffee cup, and sipped the liquid. It had cooled just enough to drink. I swallowed the rest in three gulps. She took the cup off of me when I'd finished, and smiled, moving off to do her rounds. I yawned and rubbed my eyes. Sandra had pulled the curtains shut to afford us a bit of privacy, and she'd put an extra glass with the water on the cabinet. I smiled inwardly at her thoughtfulness, before I sat up straight, and rested back into my comfy position in the chair, Carter still hadn't woken up, but she was no longer dreaming, I had forgotten that acronym again...her bed- sheet creased, and her chest slowly fell.  
  
-*-*-  
  
I lay stretched out on my sofa, a beer carefully resting on my stomach, where I had placed it after the advert break. My eyes were shut, one occasionally opening to glance at the bottle on my chest, and the volume on the tv was low enough to spook me when the door bell rang.  
  
I bolted upright, the bottle rolling down my chest, and pouring its contents in a nice line down my tee, and a big puddle on my sofa. "Shit!" I muttered, jumping from the sofa. "Shit, shit, shit!" I exclaimed, grabbing the afghan, and dabbing at the stain. The doorbell rang again, "I'm coming! I'm coming." I groaned, and picked up the bottle, draining what was left of the bitter liquid.  
  
I walked across the door, and onto the door platform, before I yanked open the door with a vengeful thrust...Only to see my second walking down the steps back towards the street. "Carter?" I called out, and she turned, surprised to see me.  
  
"I didn't think you were home." she stated, pulling a loose strand of her blonde hair behind her ears. "I...uh...you said if I wanted to...uh..."  
  
"Come in, Carter." I said to her, stopping her from the perceived embarrassment of asking to talk.  
  
I stood to the side of the door, and she walked past me. She walked down the step to my living area, and turned to look at me. "Beer?" I asked her.  
  
She nodded and looked around her at my sitting room, "Have a seat." I offered, and went into the kitchen to grab us each some beers.  
  
When I returned she was still standing in front of the couch, rubbing her hands up and down the back of her black jeans. I passed her a beer over the top of the couch, and she twisted the cap off, placing it down on my coffee table. She turned around so she was always facing me as I walked around the room and settled down on an armchair. "Stop twirling like a ballerina, Carter, and sit down." I joked, as I pushed my feet up onto the coffee table, knocking the bottle cap onto the floor. "But not on the sofa, I spilt something." She nodded and smiled slightly, for a moment I thought I'd gotten my Carter back.  
  
"Too late." she said, and turned slightly, revealing a patch of dark green on her mottled green trousers.  
  
"Bathroom?" she asked.  
  
"Down the hall, first on the right." I said, smiling, motioning with a hand towards the only corridor in my bungalow. She disappeared, and I pulled the soaked afghan off the chair, along with the offending cushions, and squatted down on the floor to assess the damage.  
  
"Here." said Carter, returning, and thrusting a damp cloth in front of my face. I snatching it from her, and watched her as she sat down. Leaning her back against the bar, and watching the damp spot on my cushion.  
  
"I was assessing the damage to my furniture." I joked, pulling the cushion onto my lap, and resting against the back of my sofa. "What's the damage assessment?" I asked, gesturing towards her.  
  
"I'll be okay." she muttered, noncommittal.  
  
"I was talking about the trousers, Carter." She looked up and smiled. I grinned a little back, before daubing at my upholstery again.  
  
"If we take the cover off, we can soak it, and scrub the stain out." She suggested. stroking her fingers over the end of the cushion closest to her. I nodded, "Okay, Carter." you start with the cushion cover, and I'll grab a basin."  
  
I was surprised I even owned a nail brush, but when I suggested it to Carter she grabbed the little thing, and some soap. Now we sat side by side, so close our hips were touching, each scrubbing at our corner of cushion.  
  
We hadn't said anything to each other for about ten minutes.  
  
It was driving me stir crazy.  
  
"So, Carter..." I began, racking my brains for an extra moment for something to say - I wanted to break the silence, I needed to break the silence. "What's big and white, and would kill you if it fell out of a tree onto your head?"  
  
She looked surprised, and then smiled to herself, "I don't know sir, what's big and white and would kill you if it fell out of a tree onto your head?"  
  
"A fridge."  
  
She turned to frown at me, and then let out a little 'ha'. Silence, five more seconds and I'd go crazy.  
  
"So, com'on Carter, you came over to talk, so lets talk." I began for her. I began to watch her implicitly, and obviously, putting pressure on her to talk to me.  
  
She turned slightly, "I guess I just need to know that out there in the field someone's watching my back-" she paused, but continued on again before I had time to be offended by the notion, "that if it ever happens again, I won't get the chance to jeopardise base security, that I won't go and scare Cassie, that I won't threaten to kill everyone - I have to know that I won't be forced to watch whilst my body does that."  
  
I nodded, I could see her point, I'd have preferred not to watch her body do that, but at the time, I'd found it hard to consider as her body, to see her body and not think of my Captain, despite the horrible acts and words that it said and did. "I'll always watch your back, Carter, and as for my hesitation to answer your question, which as I recall, was about hesitation..." I stopped and smiled encouragingly at her for a minute. "You know that I'd find it hard, but I'd do it, so would Teal'C and probably even Daniel too. But in that sort of situation, which I've been in way too many times, I think I'd just be able to do it. But I don't want to say I could."  
  
She smirked. "I guess I know what you mean." she muttered.  
  
"That's good, because it's your job to confuse me." I joked. She laughed, actually out loud. "Are you okay with this?"  
  
"I will be fine." she replied, "unlike your cushion." I nodded, she picked up the nail brush again, and began to savagely attack the yellowing on my pale green sofa. I smiled as I saw her tongue venture its way to poke out of the corner of her mouth - like a three year old colouring. I poked a finger at it, and she pulled it back in, apologising.  
  
I pushed an arm around her shoulders and drew her to me, "I don't want to loose you on SG1, Carter, *please* be careful." I said, as I felt her blonde head rest on my shoulder.  
  
"I'm not going to stop giving CPR to people, one person with a Goa'uld isn't going to make me risk the lives of all of those without." she protested, her voice coming from just below my ear.  
  
"Add a sir onto the end of that." I muttered, laughing to myself.  
  
"Sir?" she said. Half in response to my statement, the other half in confusion to it.  
  
"That's my Sam." I said, deciding this was one of a few times it was acceptable to call her that.  
  
"One hundred percent me, zero percent snake." she added, laughing. I rarely hear her laugh.  
  
-*-*-  
  
I'd love to say that I can watch over my second nonstop for hours. But even a woman as beautiful, witty, and as 'way smarter than me' as Carter gets a little boring after this long. When she began to wake up at six in the morning I had been sitting on my own next to her bed for eight hours.  
  
The first indications were the creases, they spend up a little, and soon her fingers began to twitch in my grasp. I let them go, and watched as she flexed them, stretching them far apart, and then balling her hands up into little fists. She blinked a few times before eventually opening her eyes, and she stared up at the ceiling for a few seconds in what must have been confusion.  
  
"...I..." she said, trying out her tongue. I watched as she closed her eyes and smiled, 'thankyou' she mouthed to herself, and she moved her hands up her body and wrapped her arms around her torso. I watched as two little tears dropped out of her eyes, and she laughed.  
  
I coughed a little, "Carter...?" I began, alerting her to my presence.  
  
Her eyes flew open, and she tilted her head to face me, for a moment she looked shocked, and then she smiled at me. "It's gone," she said, licking her lips, and nodding.  
  
"Yeah." I said, and we lapsed into silence. I looked down at my hands and back up at her.  
  
"What happened whilst I was in the computer?" she asked, trying to sit upright.  
  
I leant over and placed a hand on her back to help her up, and poured her a glass of water from the carafe on the side. "Ol' doc' Frasier had you fixed up to lots of machines, ventilators...she said she couldn't find you in there, and couldn't find the entity. She told us about your will, but we were giving you a minute...and you started your thing on the computers."  
  
She nodded, and sipped the glass of water. "Do you remember it?" I asked her gingerly, "Did you know what was going on?"  
  
She nodded. She licked her lips a few times as if testing the water, and then said quietly, "it was a bit like when Jolinar was inside me, before she admitted who she was, it's so strange. I wasn't me, I was a part of me, trapped on the inside. But it was also very different."  
  
"Yeah?" I muttered nonchalantly.  
  
After a few seconds of our mutual quiet contemplation (Carter speak for awkward silence) a wave of nausea and regret began to pass over me, I'd shot my 2IC, yet here she was in front of me, she probably despised me...And here, in a moment when she needed to feel amongst friends I was the only person around.  
  
When I looked up from my study of the bed rail she was watching me, a concerned, but decidedly human look on her face. "What do you call a sheep with no legs?" she asked, the furrow in her brow not budging one millimetre.  
  
I shrugged, trying to look calm.  
  
"A sheep." she replied, and broke her frown for a laugh, I laughed too. "What's up?" she asked me, once I'd calmed again.  
  
I pursed my lips, I'd better fess up, "I shot you." I said simply.  
  
"I asked you to." She replied, just as simply as I had. I opened my mouth to protest, but before I spoke she placed a hand on mine, and interrupted "Admittedly I thought it would be a Goa'uld, but after Jolinar, I asked you to shoot me."  
  
"Carter..."  
  
"I said I never wanted to be trapped inside my mind, to have my body risk the safety of earth, you, the guys...and that computer presence all it wanted to do was destroy earth - completely." Carter frowned and took another sip of her glass of water.  
  
"How was it different?" I asked her, slowing moving back into my normal mannerisms, I cradled my head in my hand rested on my knee, focussing my all my attention onto her.  
  
"Jolinar was a person - someone to fight, although I could only fight her for those split seconds before she took me over...then she became someone to plead with. The computer presence was just there, it was in control, I only knew what it did, because that's what I saw, I felt like I had no control - but there was nothing that felt tangible controlling me..." she stopped and wiped her hands across her face, sniffing back her tears.  
  
I got up and wrapped my arms around her, hugging her to my chest.  
  
With in a second I felt awkward, she froze against me, and her tears quickly slowed to a stop, I'd never seen her cry before, let alone comfort her - I had no idea how she'd have reacted - I guess this wasn't my best move.  
  
As dignified as I could I backed away from the hug - trying to ignore it, "I promised Doc' Frasier I'd call her when you woke up." I said, gathering my regulation over shirt and broken pieces of a styrofoam cup off of the chair. I backed towards the doctors office, and she nodded at me. "I'll see you later, Carter." I ventured.  
  
She nodded again - damn that woman was like a pigeon sometimes.  
  
-*-*-  
  
I've only had my arms around that woman a few times in my life, and most of those occasions aren't fond memories. I wish I could say I could look past whatever life threatening situation it was, and just remember the smell of her hair, or the softness of her skin - but it's never been about that. I've always been worrying, when I grabbed her to roll her from danger is she hurt? Did she get shot? Am I crushing her? What about the rest of my team? The only memories where it wasn't important is the odd time in the mines. When she was tired, and my arm sped around her to support her, or when we bashed into each other in the corridors, or when we sat there talking at night, and I just pulled her to me? I guess some part of me must have known it was a rare commodity, and was glad she was receptive.  
  
A hug from Sam Carter is just about all I'll ever get. She froze against me, her entire body screaming at me to get away, and shocked by how far I'd gone. She'll never feel the same way about her as I do about her. Even after four years.  
  
If I ever wanted undeniable proof, how about the zatarc thing? I pour, or just about as close to pour as I get, my guts out. She says that she wished I would go, and that she didn't want me to die because of 'misplaced, unrequiteable feelings'. She even apologised.  
  
She doesn't have to reciprocate for me to love her - she only has to be herself. The woman that I shot, and regardless of what anyone says....I'll always blame myself for that. Just like I blame myself for every order that has put her in jeopardy. Everyday of my life, it will be my hell to do it again and again.  
  
"Hey, Cassie, it's Jack, can you get Janet for me?" 


End file.
